Yet now are they held as light as the five shameless precepts of Devadatta.

336. Being of one accord with the many minds of the heathen,

They bow in worship before devils,

While yet wearing the robe of the Buddha.

337. Sad and sorrowful is it that all the priests and people now in the land of Yamato should worship the devils of heaven and earth, in the name of the holy mysteries of the Buddha.

338. It is a mark of the downward way of this evil age that men despise the name of priest or monk as a mean thing, considering them like unto slaves.

339. May they yet bring offerings with homage unto the priests, even as you do unto Saliputra or Mahamonugalyayana, those two great servants of the Lord ; though they are priests but in name and without discipline, for this is the time of degeneration and of the last days.

340. Though sin hath no substance in itself, and is but the shadow of our illusion, and soul is in itself pure, yet in all this world is there no sincere man.

341. Great sorrow is it that, in the wicked world of this age now so near its end, the high priests

who are born in the palankin, and the monks who bear it now in Nara and Mount Hiyei, desire high secular rank as the greatest honour.

342. That they consider the monk and nun as their slaves, and mock at the honourable title of priest and minister, even as at the mean name of slave, gives testimony that they despise the teaching of the Buddha.

These sixteen psalms written above are written by me, Gutoku, with lamentation, to be a record. To me even the honourable priests and monks of the Central Temples seem now to be despised.